American Welding & Engineering Co. v. Luebke

• Decision Date: 30 January 1968
• Citation: 155 N.W.2d 576,28 A.L.R.3d 1,37 Wis.2d 697
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
• Parties: , 28 A.L.R.3d 1 AMERICAN WELDING & ENGINEERING CO., Inc., Appellant, v. Marvin H. LUEBKE et al., Respondents.

Page 576

155 N.W.2d 576

37 Wis.2d 697, 28 A.L.R.3d 1

AMERICAN WELDING & ENGINEERING CO., Inc., Appellant, v. Marvin H. LUEBKE et al., Respondents.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Jan. 30, 1968.

Lichtsinn, Dede, Anderson & Ryan, Milwaukee, for appellant.

Foley, Sammond & Lardner, David E. Beckwith and Maurice J. McSweeney, Milwaukee, of counsel, for respondents.

CONNOR T. HANSEN, Justice.

We are of the opinion that the decision of this court in Abbott Laboratories v. Norse Chemical Corp. (1967), 33 Wis.2d 445, 147 N.W.2d 529, is decisive of the issue in the case presently under consideration. We are also appreciative of the fact that Abbott, supra, was a case of first impression in Wisconsin, and that the decision was rendered subsequent to that of the trial court in the instant case and therefore not available to either the trial court or counsel.

The issues presented in Abbott, supra, were twofold: (1) technology of the production process of a synthetic sweetner, and (2) customer lists and information, and in that case it was held neither constituted a trade secret. The case now before us concerns only customer lists and information. In Abbott, supra, we stated that the Restatement of the Law correctly states the general law of trade secrets. ¹

'An exact definition of a trade secret is not possible. Some factors to be considered in determining whether given information is one's trade secret are: (1) the extent to which the information is known outside of his business; (2) the extent to which it is known by employees and others involved in his business; (3) the extent of measures taken by him to guard the secrecy of the information; (4) the value of the information to him and to his competitors; (5) the amount of effort or money expended by him in developing the information; (6) the ease or difficulty with which the information could be properly acquired or duplicated by others.' Restatement, 4 Torts, p. 6, sec. 757.

In considering the matter of customer lists in Abbott, supra, p. 467, 147 N.W.2d p. 541, the court stated:

'Customer lists are on the periphery of the law of unfair competition, because legal protection does not provide as much incentive to compile lists and because most are developed in the normal course of business anyway.'

"* * * Written customer lists generally have been regarded as trade secrets when the nature of the industry permits the list to be kept secret and the list cannot readily be duplicated by independent means. The size of the list and the type of information it contains about the customers may be relevant to the latter determination, as may the amount of time and effort which went into its composition."

Further, when determining the customer list was not a trade secret this court held, Abbott, supra, p. 465, 147 N.W.2d p. 539:

'The customer lists taken by Mueller were not complicated marketing data which had been laboriously compiled by Abbott. These cards contained only the names and addresses of the customers and the individual to be contacted. There was no complicated marketing data concerning projected market needs of the customer or the customer's market habits.'

An examination of the record and an inspection of the card file that Luebke took with him, based upon the standards hereinabove set forth, leads to but one...